The Gift

One Father’s Day, a little over 30 years ago, my wife and children presented me with a gift that has ever since been dear to me. They had gone to the famous Brimfield Antique Flea Market and purchased an amazing medicine display: Balm of Tulips. I loved the gift because it wasn’t a tie or fishing pole; they knew exactly how to make me happy. But I was also thrilled to own a piece of patent medicine history that was so unusually beautiful and perfectly complete. It is so pristine, it almost looks brand new, yet it is clearly, quintessentially Victorian.

Peering through the infinite window of the internet over the intervening decades, I have seen this complete set appear in diverse locations, from eBay to the Smithsonian. There are two reasons why such patent medicine artifacts show up in significant quantities.

First, common bottles are evidence of successful sales. The ubiquitous Lydia E. Pinkham Vegetable Compound bottle is a perfect example. They sit covered with dust on dealer’s tables (or in boxes under their tables) at bottle shows and antique shops, as annoyingly omnipresent as trade cards with her face. Why? Because it was one of the best-selling patent medicines of all time. If there’s such a thing as a patent medicine axiom, it might be, “The more popular the medicine, the more unappreciated the collectible.”

Then there are patent medicines that show up more often than would be expected; yet there they are, just like the Balm of Tulips display, with all of its tiny bottles still harnessed to the showbox since the day they were first strapped in. I would speculate that there are two to four dozen of these displays in existence, the result of a cache being found somewhere; perhaps “… sealed in a few master cases stored on the second floor above the store of a former harness maker and carriage trimmer in Foxcroft, Maine, until the late 1980s” (he wrote, hoping to sound something like Sherlock Holmes) “in sealed cases because none appear touched by bugs or vermin and the paper elements show no darkening or bleaching from the sun ... In Maine because they show no staining or foxing damage from high-humidity southern or coastal regions ... Stored above a store because the uncirculated condition (no wear from handling) reveals the fact that they sat unsold ... In storage until the late 1980s because they started appearing broadly in the antique marketplace and museums in the early 1990s ... And on the second floor above a harness maker and carriage trimmers shop in Foxcroft because that’s where Henry A. Robinson, their inventor and maker, had his business. Elementary." (My apologies to Sherlock Holmes; I just couldn’t resist.)

Born in 1840, Henry Addison Robinson lived his entire life in Foxcroft, Maine. It’s northwest of Bangor, on the way to Moosehead Lake and Beaver Cove; it’s deep, central Maine. He was a pillar of the community, well-known and well-liked by his townsmen, who fondly recalled after his death how he loved to visit and swap stories at the local store and newspaper office. He took it upon himself to make and put street signs (“name boards”) on the thirty different streets in Foxcroft and neighboring Dover.

He graduated from the Philadelphia Dental College and Hospital of Oral Surgery in 1867 and came back to his hometown to practice dentistry there. He was earnest and determined in his new profession, trying to improve on the process of filing down old Spanish quarters like his Foxcroft predecessor and mentor had done to create amalgam for filling cavities, and in 1883, even inventing and patenting a metalized rubber compound for dental use. He was very well-regarded in Foxcroft as a dentist and citizen. He practiced dentistry in his hometown for 40 years, but dentistry was not his passion.

He also made the Balm of Tulips. The product’s trade card explained in a straightforward way, that a “lady writer in one of the popular household monthlies ‘wished some Yankee would find a cure for Cold Sores.” As a dentist, he explained, he was well aware of the “annoyance and inconvenience caused by cold sores,” especially on the lips of his patients, and with his education and expertise in oral medicine and surgery, he already had “a clue to a remedy.” His choice of name was also a clue; it may have been a scientific statement (if the medicine was made from tulip oil) or a metaphorical device for its use on two lips. After several years of experimentation he had invented Balm of Tulips: a little dab on the fingertip, rubbed on the lips was a cure for cold sores. The responsible dentist and pillar of his community made no claims that it also fixed bad livers, weak kidneys, or congested lungs, like the barrage of promises constantly fired by many cure-alls on the market. He stretched his medicine’s singular purpose a little bit, claiming it also “relieves the irritation and soreness of many skin and scalp diseases,” but the single sentence came across as more of a modest observation than a fabricated sales pitch. He tried his best to make a good medicine, but the Balm of Tulips was not his passion.

Had it been his passion, the product would have been advertised more aggressively and distributed much farther than his hometown; he was one of the largest taxpayers in town so had the means to do so, but he didn’t. Out of thousands of newspapers searched in a major online newspaper archive, only a single sentence in one 1890 newspaper could be found: “Balm of Tulips cures cold sores.” I’ve only seen one style of trade card advertising his products in 40 years of collecting – the one packed in his product boxes. No testimonials of satisfied customers have been found. No endorsements by the press as often happened even for obscure and unsuccessful medicines. His obituary covers all the highlights of his life, but makes no mention of the Balm of Tulips.

His heart wasn’t in sales. Interestingly and accurately, he described himself on his trade card as being “of an observing and inventive turn of mind.” He was an inventor, not an entrepreneur. Besides his invention of improved dental material, he had three more patents for packaging medicines. He didn’t patent his own medicine (as a dental professional, he probably considered it unethical to do so), but he patented the containers in which they were shipped and displayed.

The first was the “Postal Packet,” patented in 1886, a small wooden cylinder with a tightly fitting wooden cover and a band ensuring it stayed in place, yet “easy for a postmaster to undo it to examine the contents of the packet, and afterward to refasten it without breaking it.” It was a crush-proof shipping container that would even survive today’s often perilous shipping journeys. The one I recently purchased had not been opened in over 130 years – I didn’t feel like I was opening an antique, but a time capsule. Inside was a vial of the Balm of Tulips, with full, perfect label, crystallized contents, crowned in tin foil with a little, bright pink twine tied around the neck – the means by which the consumer could pull the vial out of the postal packet. Wrapped around the vial was a piece of advertising surrounded by an elegant illustration of a tulip, the perfect homonym for his medicine.

Robinson’s other two packaging inventions were both patented in 1890. Number 435,022 was the vehicle which carried his medicine on its voyage through time to my collection today. The result with his product in it, is a stunning display of color and creativity. The header card features the actual image of Dr. Henry A. Robinson, surrounded by the product name and the words “PREVENTS. BANISHES.” (I just love the use of BANISHES here.) It’s promise to cure “Band Players’ TENDER AND SORE LIPS” seems smart too; my dad was a musician, playing clarinet and saxophone – his lips were his moneymakers.

The trade cards and other instructions were all exactly the dimensions of the box, as was the header card, all of which were designed to arrive at a store ready to be removed, assembled, and set up as a counter or shelf display, with trade card handouts for the customers. The showbox displays from both sides: the header card is printed on both sides and there are a half-dozen bottles on each side as well. Robinson knew exactly what he was doing – he was trying to do things better than they were being done by medicine makers anywhere else in the country:

We aim to excel and be original. Original medicine, trade-marked. Original mailing packet, patented. Original double-faced, self-advertising carton, patented. All our own.

Keep it in sight of customers, and hereafter in stock. It is not in the way, does not catch dust, cannot be pilfered from. It displaces nothing else that you now sell. (His emphasis.)

The third patent, number 435,023, born minutes after the Balm of Tulips showbox, was another style of showbox that, if it was ever made, I haven’t yet seen. Perhaps it was designed for use by other medicine makers, as Robinson never made his medicine in a large, square-based version, to the best of my knowledge. The compartments in the front were designed to each hold three much smaller versions of the featured product than the display bottle in the center, making a full dozen with all four sides of the display. The patent suggested the corners could be used for “statuettes, or other ornamental articles.” Dr. Robinson spent a great deal of time and effort designing effective packaging for shipping and display medicines, but inventing was still not his passion.

His passion, by all accounts, was fruits and flowers. “Flowers, both wild and cultivated, were his friends, and a small knot of them usually adorned his coat through the summer.“ He was very active in Maine’s Pomological Society and won five first prize awards for various species of apples after the 1901 harvest season, just a few months before he died. He loved being on his land, caring for his large orchards of apple, pear, and plum trees, and cultivating all manner of grape and berry vines. It was eloquently said of him,

Each individual tree and bush received his careful attention, and he was never happier than when working among them. As his health failed, his interest in fruits seemed to increase. He was as eager to see and learn about a new variety as an astronomer to see a new star.

For several years, Dr. Robinson had suffered from severe stomach trouble which had gradually reduced his strength, but he persisted in taking care of his dental patients and his fruit trees until just a few days before his death on 24 January 1902. Dentist, community leader, medicine maker, inventor, horticulturalist – he was a true renaissance man. For one who accomplished so much, it is all the more amazing that his least significant achievement, the Balm of Tulips, is his most visible legacy, wrapped in his brilliant packaging, survived hidden away somewhere for decades, to re-emerge in collections today, looking as grand as the day they were made. His cure for cold sores has turned into a gift; ironic to be sure, but thankfully true.

A Cure for Monsters

Please gaze at the image above and ponder it for a few moments. What kind of animal do you see – perhaps a poisonous reptile, an angered dragon, or some other monster drawn by an overactive imagination? And what does it have to do with the message, “DISEASE CURED”? Covered in red spots all over its green skin, with blood-filled eyes, a fanged growl, and sharp, extended claws, is it the personification of disease, poised to attack our health, or something more sinister that threatens our very souls?

Why did the advertiser menace with a mysterious creature instead of some well-known terror of the mid-19th century, like a rabid dog snarling through frothing teeth or a rattlesnake poised for a venomous strike? Why use some fantastical thing that had only recently been discovered and barely understood?

The cardboard sign was printed in 1864 in New York, just past mid-century, a pivotal time for Americans, when their familiar world was being torn apart and an unclear future was forcefully dawning, whether they were ready or not. The Civil War was still raging, challenging the very existence of the country as they knew it. The Industrial Revolution was propelling forward, with more inventions and increasingly faster production output; homemade was being replaced by storebought. The power of trains and guns, and the discovery of oil were all positioning the country to become a superpower. And knowledge was shredding its centuries-old cocoon of superstitions and folktales, emerging into the fact-driven flight of science. “DISEASE CURED” was a bold promise consistent with the expectations of the time, but the odd beast below those words made a curious and unsettling contrast to the certainty above it. As it turns out, that red-spotted nightmare was more than just a metaphor for disease; the previously unknown lifeform was a subliminal reminder of all the world-shaking uncertainty that was bothering the minds of Americans at that precise moment in time. Its very presence on the sign was challenging their core beliefs: did God really exist and was he in control of their world?

Footprints of Dragons instead of Angels

Discoveries in geology and paleontology challenged Earth’s timeline and the history of life upon it. Fossilized plants and birdlike footprints embedded in deep layers of stone and sediment suggested epochs of life and adaptation far different from seven days of divine creation.

The discovery of fossils – teeth, femurs, ribs, and other bones – most often enormous – told stories of ancient creatures in a distant past that had once clearly dominated the earth one giant footprint at a time. Such giants had long been called dragons, but in 1842 a British scientist introduced the term dinosauria, meaning “terrible lizards.” Scaly, cold-blooded, large-toothed giant reptiles that the Bible described only loosely or allegorically, if at all. Every dinosaur bone that was discovered threatened the biblical world of the faithful.

THE UNHOLY ARK. The workshop where concrete statues of dinosaurs were being sculpted for London's 1854 Crystal Palace Exhibition.

But the scientifically-minded public was captivated. Giant, nightmarish beasts that once filled the earth were now filling their imaginations. Even one of the era’s biggest celebrities, Charles Dickens, dreamed of dinosaurs. He was the first to write about them; the first paragraph of his new 1853 book, Bleak House read:

“… Implacable November weather. As much mud in the streets, as if waters had not newly retired from the face of the earth, and it would not be [surprising] to meet a Megalosaurus, forty feet long or so, waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn-hill. …”

In 1854 the vaunted Crystal Palace Exhibition in London displayed the first-ever dinosaur sculptures: concrete full-size replicas of prehistoric reptiles. Attached is an illustration of the sculptures under construction in 1853. (The "DISEASE CURED" dinosaur bears some resemblance to the model in the lower left. The sculptures in this famous exhibition were almost certainly the inspiration for the creature illustrated on our sign, making it a very early interpretation of what the extinct animals looked like in that ancient time when the excavated bones had been covered in beastly flesh.) In 1855, the year following the London exhibition, the first dinosaur remains (teeth) were discovered in North America (Montana) and in 1858, the continent’s first complete skeleton was found in New Jersey. Dinosaur fever was starting to infect an enthusiastic American public; pictures of the prehistoric creatures like the one in the Herrick’s sign were sure to fascinate.

The Ungodly Origin of Man

Dinosaurs weren’t the only revelations that seemed to be trampling on deep-rooted religious beliefs; religionists hotly challenged the theories of the evolutionists, especially those of Charles Darwin, whose magnum opus, The Origin of Species, was published in 1859. Although the book made no assertion about man’s evolution from apes, his work clearly outlined the principle of natural selection, which many interpreted as a clear departure from man’s divine origin in the Garden of Eden. The next year, one of many critical reviews took aim at disparaging Darwin and his theories:

THE NEW THEORY OF CREATION

      On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection by Charles Darwin, M.A. … Man himself is not, we are told, an emanation from the Divine mind, the culmination of the grand scheme of organized life … but an accumulation of accidental results, descended from some monster swimming in the ocean of the early world!

      The common instinct of humanity revolts at the idea. …

Such rebuke didn’t slow down the roll of scientists and their convinced followers; in 1863, Thomas Henry Huxley published Evidence as to Man’s Place in Nature, which unequivocally argued that humans had evolved from apes. Then, in 1864, William Murphy, the printer at 438 Canal Street, New York, printed the store sign for Herrick’s Pills and Plasters. It boldly promised “DISEASE CURED” by using Herrick’s products, but no traditional illustrations of before-and-after, sick and cured versions of the same person were used; they had been  replaced by an odd but striking image of the unique, green scary thing.

Standing out even more than the large red letters forming the brash claim was the hairy, hungry, sawbacked monster. The mythical dragon had evolved into a flesh-and-bones dinosaur, but it was also portrayed as the incarnation of evil, living among other slimy denizens of the fetid primeval ooze from which it had emerged, covered with disease spots and propelled by relentless animal instinct to attack and kill with fevered viciousness.

The public had been conditioned decades earlier to consider the concept of the dead coming back to life. Early-century horror stories, like Frankenstein and The Vampyre, had enticed a frightened but thrilled public to form terrifying creatures in their imagination, like Frankenstein’s monster and blood-sucking revenants. Herrick’s monster was now coaxing them to expand their minds to see a world before the Flood, where behemoths foraged through a primordial Eden that was devoid of Adam and Eve but full of apes. Under the “DISEASE CURED” banner, the excavated symbol of scriptural revision had been reanimated by the artist to represent mankind’s worst nightmare: although apparently susceptible to the advertised medicines, its kind had tried to kill God.

Stop this evolving monster, the banner’s subliminal message promised, and you may save not just a sick life, but Heaven itself.

 

For more on the Herrick’s medicine sign, see:

PROMISING CURES, Vol.3, Chapter 7: Reconstructive Surgery

Lynn Massachusetts history - History of medicine - 19th-Century Health Remedies - Vintage Medical Ephemera - 19th-century medicine

 

A Big Story from a Small Bottle

Several years ago, I went to the illustrious Baltimore Bottle Show. Traveling from Texas to Maryland for a long weekend cost me several hundred dollars but, although the show was fabulous, I only purchased one little bottle – and I mean little. It measures just 3½ inches (8.89 cm). It only cost $30 USD, but adding in all the trip expenses it took to get the bottle, I claim this pipsqueak cost me almost a thousand dollars.

Dr. Haynes' Arabian Balsam - trial size bottle. Some residue of the medicine can still be seen clinging to the inside shoulders of the bottle. Rapoza collection.

I surveyed the show with the diligence of a revenuer hunting for contraband. This little, labeled bottle was unveiled early on in my reconnaissance, but I kept coming back to it, even when I had wandered hundreds of bottles away. It was the sad, tired face on the label that kept calling out to me.

It had all the elements I look for in a bottle: a great label that hints at an interesting story, a historical connection to Lynn, Mass., no cracks in the glass, and a price I can afford. This bottle of Haynes’ Arabian Balsam might have held only a thimbleful of medicine, but it checked off all my

boxes … and that face looked so lonely!

I have seen this medicine advertised many times in my research, but really didn’t know anything about it, other than it was made in Providence, Rhode Island, and had that exotic name, accompanied by the haggard, haunting face. Why was it called Arabian Balsam, not Providence Balsam, and for heaven’s sake, instead of using an image of a genie on a flying carpet or a sultry harem girl , why was the illustration THAT FACE? Here’s what I found out.

Haynes’ Arabian Balsam was the creation of Aaron Haynes, while living in South Braintree, Mass. (a little south of Boston). He was born in Vermont and after attending 30 weeks of classes at the Vermont Academy of Medicine, he graduated in 1830. He then married and got busy having children. As late as  August 1850 he was still living in Vermont not as a physician, but as a Baptist clergyman, suggesting he wasn’t fully committed to medicine as a career at that point.

Over the next few years the Haynes family moved to South Braintree and Aaron was focusing on his knowledge of medicine to make the balsam that bore his name. It was a remarkable remedy, some might say miraculous, since it possessed qualities fit for internal and external use, and for man or beast. In 1855 he produced a brochure that claimed it brought relief in “all cases of pain and inflammation,” such as burns, bruises, sprains, gunshot and other wounds, earache, deafness, piles, sore lips and throat, lost motion of the limbs and much more; from poisoning to hiccups, this was the answer.

The brochure included testimonials from grateful South Braintree neighbors, dated December 1854, and notably, the stories of the balsam’s successful use focused on its external application.

One wrote of a daughter who sat immobilized for five days because of “pain like a dagger piercing through her hip”; after one day using the amazing Arabian Balsam, “she was almost entirely free of pain” and within three weeks she was “perfectly well.”

Another told of a year-old toddler who spilled a teacupful of boiling hot tea on  herself; “she was in such agony.” Her parents stripped off her clothes and found her skin “as red as a blaze all over her neck, bosom and bowels.” The Arabian Balsam was applied over the entirety and within ten minutes the baby had relief.

A third story told of a visiting mother who had no use of her right arm for two years, but the visiting Dr. Haynes prescribed his Arabian Balsam, telling her that “you thought it would cure it.” When the doctor visited her five or six weeks later, he found her “sewing with her right hand as tho’ it was perfectly well.” The endorsement also revealed that the doctor’s visit had occurred over four years earlier, showing that he was practicing medicine in South Braintree just a few months after he was censused as a preacher in Vermont.

Dr. Haynes was cautiously optimistic about the successes of his medicine – cautious because he didn’t want others to copy his success, and optimistic because he wanted to brand his medicine and have it sold in stores – so in 1859 he sought trademark protection of his product name, Haynes’ Arabian Balsam, and he added his face to prove that it was the genuine article. According to his advertising, 40,000 bottles sold over 1856-1857. Maybe one or two zeroes had been added, but his success had attracted the attention of a fellow named Jesse Miller. Known as both a physician and a peddler, he lived in Wrentham, Mass., about 25 miles away, on the way to Providence, Rhode Island.

Miller had a wife and two young sons, but not much else. It’s hard to imagine how he was able to negotiate a deal with Dr. Haynes to purchase the formula and the rights to take over the Arabian Balsam business, but he did, in 1859. He named his business J. Miller & Sons, but with his two boys being only 15 and 10, fame and fortune would be largely his own responsibility for a while.

The Arabian balsam tree is a shrub, also referred to as the Balm of Gilead.

There were at least two parts to Miller’s plan to grow his new business. He added his own concoction, which he dubbed, Dr. J. Miller’s Vegetable Expectorant, and he advertised both  medicines in Connecticut and Maine newspapers, hoping to expand their market. When Lydia Pinkham’s son, Daniel, had his grocery store, he stocked Haynes’ Arabian Balsam; I get a kick out of imagining all those little tiny faces somberly staring out from his shelf.

As hard as it may be for us to imagine today, medicines named Arabian Balsam and Vegetable Expectorant were anything but original: there were many others using these designations, much like we use the terms “toothpaste” and “cough syrup” today, differentiating them by the brand or maker. Lady Perrott’s Arabian Balsam was being sold in 1821 and Cheeseman’s, Prince’s, and Bennet’s peppered Arabian balsam advertising over the next several decades, and many others were added to the competition throughout the century. Store advertising frequently referred to Arabian balsam generically rather than specifying exactly which brands they were selling.

Arabian balsam gets its name from Flavius Josephus, an ancient historian who claimed that among the spices that the queen of Sheba presented to King Solomon (1 Kings 10:2) “was some of the real Arabian Balsam ….” It was an aromatic gum from the bark of a balsam tree – more of a shrub - found in Arabia and, he wrote, it was one in the same as the Balm of Gilead. It wasn’t just tree sap – it was the stuff miracles are made of, and it seemed to be the miracle cure of the 19th century – at least that’s what Jesse Miller was praying for. But his formula wasn’t made from the aromatic resin of a rare Arabian shrub; it’s principal ingredient was turpentine, the pungent – and toxic – oil of the pine tree.  Now we know it can cause kidney failure, blood in the urine, low blood pressure, vision loss, chest pain, vomiting, severe coughing, hemorrhaging, and even death. But Victorians swallowed and slathered on the Arabian balsam to kill a universe of pains. It was even a trusted cure for pets and farm animals:

A cat will catch cold, sneeze, and have all the symptoms of influenza … if she has a sore throat wrap it with flannel wet with Arabian Balsam and keep her away from the children. (1889)

Where fowls [chickens] have swellings on heads and feet bathe the affected parts with Arabian Balsam …. (1897)

Jesse Miller gave the business everything he had, trying to raise up his three young sons in the business and leave them a legacy of riches. His legacy turned out to be one of loss. He lost a daughter, a grandson, his wife, and one of three sons to various sicknesses over the next twenty years. Then he lost the business. The costs of the company had exceeded his profits and resources, so he mortgaged his business and kept making the products to sell through one of his sons in Boston. But the creditors, a company named E. Morgan & Sons, claimed sole right, not only to the goods and materials, but to the trademark. The court ruling found in favor of Morgan’s company, so Miller’s new attempt at a trademarked label (shown below) was not allowed to launch the business in Boston.

Jesse Miller was left with nothing but broken dreams. The bad news was eagerly broadcasted through newspapers across the country:

The Proprietor of the Arabian Balsam Buried From an Insane Asylum.

Franklin, Mass., August 27 [1885]. – Jesse Miller, celebrated as the proprietor of the Arabian Balsam, the manufacture of which he carried on at Sheldonville and later at Providence, was buried at Sheldonville yesterday. He died in the Taunton Insane Asylum, where he has been confined for several years. He suffered extended litigation with the originator of the balsam and other interested parties. He had accumulated a large property only to lose it again. These troubles, with a hereditary tendency to brain trouble, unsettled his mind.

Aaron Haynes, M.D., creator of Haynes' Arabian Balsam.

Various members of the Morgan family kept making Haynes' Arabian Balsam deep into the 20th century. Government prosecution meant court cases, fines, reduced promises and claims, and less-offensive ingredients, but the Arabian Balsam continued being sold until 1961, over a century after Dr. Aaron Haynes started healing his patients with his version of the ancient, biblically inspired remedy. His face now poses as a silent witness to a long and storied history and to the many, many wounded and sick people, cats, chickens and other creatures that were thankful for that little bottle of medicine. Seems like that should make the doctor's face smile at least a little bit.

The West Lynn Cash Store, belonging to James Tarbox advertised the sale of Arabian balsam of unspecified brand. He was likely selling so cheaply in order to corner the local market, driving customers to his store for the strongly selling medicine category. Due to his constant advertising of the medicine, townsmen nicknamed his horse (actually named "Smuggler") "Arabian Balsam". [Advertisement "The Daily Item," (Lynn, Massachusetts) 24 December 1879]

For more on Haynes' Arabian Balsam and other types of Arabian Balsam, see:

PROMISING CURES, Vol.3, Chapter 8: Heroine Addiction

Lynn Massachusetts history - History of medicine - 19th-Century Health Remedies - Vintage Medical Ephemera - 19th-century medicine